Disposable learning

An email from a friend in Argentian reminds me of a sequence my father and I used to play with. We were, even by my teens, talking about how the truth you are taught changes as you get older, and how successive teachers introduce you to "the truth"....

Primary School Teacher: "Well, little Johnny, I know your Mummy said so, but ....."
Middle School teacher:" Now then John, that won't do now that you're in middle school!"
Secondary Teacher: "James, That's childish nonsense! Go and read the text book"
Undergraduate Lecture: "You'll all have to get those silly school theories out of your heads"
Post Graduate supervisor: "Now you'll have a chance to find out what REALLY goes on, Jon....."
Dean: "And interesting little book Jim, a bit simplistic, but a good first attempt"
TV pundit: "Dr John clearly knows nothing about ......"

The truth is that we all suffer from the idea that learning is linear. It's not of course our idea, but an idea the teachers foist on us to protect their professional position. I can't blame them for that.

The linear argument is that "you can't learn that until you've learned this". It views learning as a ladder, of which each rung is the preserve of specially trained expert guides, and you are helped up it when your turn comes. So throughout your education you encounter new teachers who express amazement at how pathetic your edcation so far has been. "Now", they say, "we will teach you how it REALLY is!" That's because they judge everything from their rung of the ladder, and only see as "far down" as the rung at which they "take you on"

Linear learning is nearly always the most utter tosh. It doesn't stand even a cursory examination. Look.

One of the first things any child learns in school French is "S'il vous plait". a reflexive verb, which the linear thinking dictates you wouldn't learn until year 2. But you need "Please" at once, so you learn to use it at once.

It is only in the third year of your medical training that you learn about Malaria, its symptoms and treatments. It is in the first month of your job in Africa that, with no previous medical training, you learn all about it, what causes it, and how it is treated.

After much cross-disciplinary study, you find out that substantial improvement in the nitrogen content of the soil will greatly enhance the yield per acre of maize. As a listener to a radio gardening programme you learn in 30 seconds that putting a sardine into the hole before planting out the seedlings will make your "corn on the cob" grow like a triffid.

But teachers maintain the linear view. They have to, because they are also rewarded on that basis. Generally we value the university lecturer more than the primary teacher. We are paying them for how high they are on the ladder, for the time they have spent getting there. But really, it's the wrong way round. The people we should pay the most are those who make sure the child knows what a ladder is for, and how to climb it.